Thursday, December 21, 2006

If you haven't got your presents wrapped yet, have run out of the regular wrapping paper or just want to break from a boring rut, give these creative gift wraps a try:

13. Use something different as paper. Instead, use a piece of sheet music, a map, a handkerchief or the Sunday comics, matching the wrap with the theme of the present.

12. Use something different for ribbon. Instead use new shoelaces, raffia, bias tape, plastic laces, jute twine or Christmas garland. Cut strips of wrapping paper and sculpt them into a coordinating bow.

11. Make unusual gift tags. Use a key ring and write on the circular paper tag, mount a white paper snowflake on a piece of red cardstock, write on the back of a small black-and-white photograph, write on a piece of felt with puffy paint, use a baseball card or cut a tag out of a greeting-card. Pink Chalk Studio had a good post on making gift tags as well.

10. Make your own wrapping paper. Decorate butcher paper or the paper side of freezer paper with rubber stamp prints, glued buttons, bay leaves arranged in the shape of a wreath or glued-on plastic jewels. With butcher paper look for natural things as embellishments, with freezer paper gold and silver work well.9. Make fun package toppers. To decorate the top of the package use cinnamon sticks, pinecones, Bazooka bubble gum, balloons, glass ball ornaments, jingle bells, origami figures, sea shells or paper fans.

8. Use unusual containers in place of traditional boxes. Decorate paper lunch bags, make a corrugated cardboard tube or fill an oven mitt, teapot or breadpan.

7. Weave your own paper. Using strips of magazine pages or wrapping paper, weave your own wrapping paper and tie with a organza bow.6. Wrap with fabric. Gather a double layer of pink satin and tulle around a package, then tie at the top with a string of craft pearls and ribbon.

5. Make your own gift case. Sew a large felt mitton as an unusual gift box, fastened at the bottom with a red ribbon. Alternately, make a large felt puppet as a covering for a gift--it works particularly well for baby shower gifts. Hello My Name Is Heather has a fun idea for wrapping gift cards.

4. Make a drum. Take an unused paint can and cover it with contact paper and diagonal strips of felt to make a drum container.

3. Make a giant peppermint. Paint a paper mache box with red and white swirls to look like a peppermint candy, then cover with clear plastic wrapping and tie at both ends with red ribbon.

2. Make a petal box. Using a 6"x9" postcard or a piece of cardstock of the same size, trace the enlarged shape at right, scoring along the edges of the square in the center and folding the "petals" toward the center until they overlap and lock together.

1. Make Chinese take-out boxes. Using a clean take-out container, trace its outline on a piece of colored posterboard and cut it out. Score the edges for easy folding and fold it up, using glue to secure side flaps if necesary. For a handle bend a piece of wire (and here you could paint it gold or even bend it to include the shape of a star or bend it to say "merry christmas") and fasten at each end by poking it through the sides and securing.

Heather Bailey has a good idea for creative containers for gift cards in her post here.

I love these ideas...however i'm done my Christmas wrapping. I tried it one Christmas decorating a craft paper and stamping it with different designs. I'll keep this post in mind for future gift giving ideas.

Wow! those are so cool and so creative! I wouldn't want to put one of the gifts I've wrapped beside yours!! and I think I'd have a hard time opening such beautifully wrapped creations! Happy T13 and a very Merry Christmas :)

As for me, right now I am listening to the dulcet tones of scissors on wrapping paper and tissue paper being scrunched as my niece does all my wrapping! Priceless!!!!

Oh...and for the person who asked where to buy unused take out containers...I used some a few years back for a team building program I was conducting and I just went to a Chinese restaurant and offered to pay for them. They cost next to nothing. And if you only want a few, I'll bet they would give them to you free after you have a meal there!

I should put in a disclaimer that this year I haven't used one of these creative ideas. I have at different times in the past, when I was feeling like Wonder Woman, but this year the kids are wrapping most everything under our tree. The Santa stuff hasn't been done yet and it'll be the Costco wrapping paper for me.